This is one of those products where "form follows function" doesn't do it any aesthetic favors. 

But despite it being unattractive, as soon as you watch the video you see just how darn useful the MUTDUT MultiCinch is:

I like the fact that these are easily reversible, unlike zip-ties, and the alternating sizes of holes is a nice touch. The developers have got the molds ready to go…

…and are now seeking funding on Kickstarter. Buy-in starts at $7 for a three-pack, and at press time there were 31 days left to pledge.

Some of the most exciting work during NYCxDesign can be found at student exhibitions, but where are they? The short answer: all over the place. Some are hidden in larger shows like ICFF, and others are standalone shows. To make the search for great student work a little easier, we've put together a list of student exhibitions we're looking forward to and where to find them:

Walker Nosworthy 18 FD and Siena Smith 18 TX — Patterns for Making

ICFF

Schools exhibit for free this year at ICFF, meaning there will be an abundance of student work at this year's show. Among many exciting student exhibitions are:

For Design for the Mind, a collaboration between Pratt Institute, the Cooper Hewitt Museum and CaringKind, students developed furniture and products for people diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease, their families, and caregivers.

RISD's Patterns for Making is an exhibition of current RISD student work from the collaborations of the departments of Furniture Design and Textiles.

WantedDesign

WantedDesign Manhattan and Brooklyn always open up a fascinating design dialogue, showcasing work from both students and professionals. This year, student exhibitions at the show seem to be in future-gazing mode:

In Coincident Times, the graduate students of the MFA in Products of Design at the School of Visual Arts explore speculative pasts and futures to produce fifteen product proposals for the present day.

A collaboration between Pratt Institute and Caesarstone, Future Kitchen encourages students to explore all aspects of designing the kitchen of the future.

For HyperHybrid, a group of students from various design schools were asked to explore the theme "HyperHybrid," where they envisioned objects with multiple functions and merged production processes.

Looking to hire students instead of critique their work? You might catch some at Wanted Career Day.

Standalone Student Shows

Parsons Festival is an annual series of exhibitions, workshops, events and critiques that highlight cutting-edge student work. 

Models, drawings, digital media, as well as full-scale outdoor installations will be on display to represent the best work of GSAPP's diverse and international student body during Columbia GSAPP's End of Year Show.

Cooper Union's Annual Student Exhibition transforms the classrooms, hallways and studios of The Cooper Union into galleries showcasing work from the schools of architecture, art and engineering.

Pratt Shows: Design is the School of Architecture, Art, and Design's annual exhibition of work by exceptional seniors and postgraduates that provides an opportunity to see a diverse range of what's next in industrial design, interactive design, package design and more.

Craving more NYCxDesign events? Our NY Design Week Map can help!

If you're a fan of Roy Underhill/The Woodwright's Shop, you've undoubtedly seen the handy tool tote he carries. In this video I'll show you how to make one. Plus I detail a stupid-simple method of making compound butt joints by hand; no angle charts or compound miter saws necessary.

As usual, no electrons were harmed in the making of this project.

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This "Hand Tool School" series is provided courtesy of Shannon Rogers, a/k/a The Renaissance Woodworker. Rogers is founder of The Hand Tool School, which provides members with an online apprenticeship that teaches them how to use hand tools and to build furniture with traditional methods.

** Who We Are ** The New Digital Business group is an entrepreneurial startup within AMC Networks. We’re focused on building and growing subscription video streaming services with strong curation and editorial voice driving the user experience. We currently operate two growing SVOD services: Sundance Now

There are few people in the design world more familiar with field research, and the extensive travel that goes with it, than Jan Chipchase. On May 6th, Jan launched what has turned out to be a very successful Kickstarter campaign to publish his most recent book, The Field Study Handbook. There's still time to pre-order a copy of what looks to be a fascinating read, even if field research in the Hindu Kush is not on your immediate list of things to do.

Jan is a researcher, writer and photographer whose work focuses on the intersection of design, tech, human behavior and culture. Over the years, he's led research teams investigating both mainstream and emerging markets for Nokia and frog design. In 2014, he founded Studio D, a research, design and innovation consultancy, and later used his extensive travel experiences to create an ultra-light luggage brand, SDR Traveller.

I had a chance to catch up with Jan to talk about the book launch and other recent adventures and activities, as well as ask for some travel advice.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Core77: In addition to Studio D and SDR Traveller, I see also that you run as service called The Fixer List. What is that all about? It seems mysterious.

JC: Fixers are a staple of field research, at least with the way I run projects. Each project includes a local crew that is usually led by someone I call a "fixer". They come from very diverse backgrounds, often speak multiple languages, have a very good sense of their home locale and know how to hustle. Over the years, many of these connections have stayed in touch.

The Fixer List is the Studio D list of unusual talent that we can draw on to run projects around the world. We receive a lot of applicants.

You spend a large percentage of your time on the road, traveling extensively across the world. What are some notable recent field trips you've taken?

JC: Saudi Arabia was interesting and challenging. We were there gathering insights to understand the value proposition of a new brand offering. The new service, Jawwy, went live last year. The team had to achieve a high level of understanding of the local culture and how it maps to a mobile service, in only a month. Many foreigners would struggle to achieve this level of understanding in a lifetime. All credit to our local team of ten people for getting us that far.

Last year I took a tough, 7,000km overland expedition through Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan's GBAO region and China's western provinces. The trip was full of remote communities, dubious border crossings, permeable borders and lots of checkpoints. I learned a lot on that trip and wrote up my thoughts in a Medium post called 61 Glimpses of the Future.

Another interesting trip involved training a client's team on field research methods, including setting up a mountain retreat at the edge of the Tibetan Plateau to process the data. On every project we get to ask "Where is the best place to figure out x?" and "Where do we want to be today?"

Naturally, the Kickstarter includes expeditions as rewards, if you're up for A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush.

In the Kickstarter video, you mention that the book is part of a mission to reframe the relationship between those that make things and those that consume them. Can you talk about this a bit?

JC: Increasingly, the impetus for creating new products will be based on the data analytics of mass consumption, feedback on marketing strategies, and optimized value engineering. The product creators are removed from their audience by several steps, and it is easy to lose touch with that actual audience. The ability to gather an over abundance of data only compounds the problem. As more data comes on stream, revealing what people are doing and how, there is a growing danger of people being treated as little more than lines in a database, stripped of personality and context, there solely to be mined and monetized.

Field research is defined by closeness and empathy. You get close to those you are studying, and in doing so, develop a deeper empathy for their lives and ways of living. You then take that empathy and—in the best cases—reflect it back on them through your work. In the right hands, it generates very rich, and very nuanced, data that is capable of answering why people do what they do. Understanding the motivations behind people's actions can lead to very different outcomes, if all you knew before was what people did and how.

I try (and usually fail) to not pack too much when I travel. As a seasoned traveller what are some of your suggestions and tips for packing?

JC: Everybody over packs. It's human nature! By packing less, you're actually more flexible and better able to alter your planned itinerary to react to interesting opportunities. My own preference is to use hand-held luggage (no wheels allowed!), make sure the bag can fit under an economy-class seat or a business class foot-well, and even with that small size, still leave room in your bag for things you might pick up along the way. I wrote about how the psychology of packing impacts the experience of the journey, and it still holds true.

Check out the book, and other rewards available for pre-order on the Kickstarter page for The Field Study Handbook. 

Article illustration, and book illustrations, by Lee Phillips (@leejohnphillips)

We actually found this particular piece stuffed into the attic of a dilapidated barn in the Danish countryside. It was covered in a layer of ashy dust that was so thick we had no idea what kind of wood was underneath. After some heavy cleaning, the original color came back to the frame, and this is what was revealed.

This oak and paper cord lounge chair was designed by Jørgen Bækmark for FDB Møbler in 1963. 

Called the Model J82, its paper cord seat is woven around an oak frame.

Here are some detail shots so you can see how it was constructed.

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These "Mid Century Modern Find of the Week" posts are provided courtesy of Mid Century Møbler, which specializes in importing vintage Danish Modern and authentic Mid Century furniture from the 1950s and 1960s.

Our team's focus for the Voom 22 was to reimagine quality sound fused with 360 degree design and set a new standard for the iconic VAVA speaker line. This instant classic is enveloped by a seamless, sophisticated fabric grille crafted to fit within your home décor yet portable enough to entertain everything from a demanding lifestyle.

It's a Friday, so why not watch footage of Gav and Dan (a/k/a the Slow Mo guys) while the former films the latter diving onto a trampoline covered in 1,000 loaded mousetraps:

The video's only been up for a day or so, and it's already got two million more views than the mousetrap video they did last year, where Dan activates a mousetrap with his tongue. I'm not saying you should watch it, I'll just leave it here and you can decide what to do with your time.

Cartoons! They carpet the walls of our studio, and they make frequent appearances in Design that Matters presentations and TEDtalks. In his 2009 book, The Back of the Napkin, design thinker and professional doodler Dan Roam demonstrates how simple cartoons can help us to explain and visualize complex concepts, brainstorm more effectively and extract meaning from piles of data.

The Backof the Napkin argues that if you can draw a smiley face and a stick figure, you're ready to become a visual thinker. The book demonstrates how even simple doodles can help ideas jump off the page.

DtM's value is expressed in terms of novel solutions to tough problems. Where powerpoint slides and bullet points can lead to anxiety and boredom, drawing cartoons makes people happy. Happy people are more creative. Creativity pays the bills at DtM.

But there's more! We've found loads of resources describing human-centered design research methods, including IDEO's Method Cards and the LUMA Institute's Innovating for People. Back of the Napkin is the first book we found that explains the kinds of visual "frameworks" we use for data-reduction. Frameworks help us to organize the enormous undifferentiated mass of observations and insights we collect during field research. Frameworks lead to qualitative design principles, and then to quantitative product requirements and specifications. Roam's framework examples on pages 130-133 are worth the price of the book.

And if you buy this or any of the other books through the links in this email, Amazon will send part of the proceeds to DtM!

[The Back of the Napkin]

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This "Design Experience that Matters" series is provided courtesy of Timothy Prestero and the team at Design that Matters (DtM). As a nonprofit, DtM collaborates with leading social entrepreneurs and hundreds of volunteers to design new medical technologies for the poor in developing countries. DtM's Firefly infant phototherapy device is treating thousands of newborns in 21 counties from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe. In 2012, DtM was named the winner of the National Design Award.

2017's edition of NYCxDesign is proving to be the most jam-packed installment of the event to date—previously deemed New York Design Week, organizers of this series of cultural events are stretching it out to a completely saturated month of launches, exhibitions, conferences, crits and expos. We have yet to hit week three, which will introduce the beginning of events like WantedDesign, Sight Unseen's OFFSITE and more, but we mustn't forget there are tons of great small exhibitions taking place prior to the chaotic two-week spraw, initially established by the reigning king of New York Design events: ICFF.

Here's a roundup of some of the best things to check out around Manhattan this weekend:

Cody Hoyt and Chris Wolston at Patrick Parrish

Work by Chris Wolston

Patrick Parrish's Soho space hosts two shows for NYCxDesign, the first one taking place in their small Manhattan garden behind the gallery space—the backyard hosts new works by Chris Wolston, a designer well known for his playful neon "Fetish Lights". His new collection shows him expanding into the field of ceramics, creating large terra cotta furniture pieces with pockets for succulents and other plant life.

Cody Hoyt's psychedelic creations

And last night, ceramicist Cody Hoyt's exhibition of geometric vessels opened to the public in the front room of the gallery. Using a mold made of sheet rock, Hoyt places inside the mold a number of clay slabs the make up the walls of the vessel. Each slab is sliced off a block of clay Hoyt collages together to make a large extruded piece with a complicated geometric pattern (a process known to some as nerikomi). Each piece also boasts distinct cracking patterns as a result of the seams connecting collaged pieces of clay. Hoyt noted to Core77 that in the process of experimentation with this method, "what I found is that I can anticipate the way it cracks and pulls apart. In same cases with bigger work, it cracks in insane ways, and other places it cracks in a more compact, predictable way. So it's kind of a balance of deciding how chaotic I want each piece to get."

Patrick Parrish Gallery, 50 Lispenard St

Open M-F 11-6 pm, Saturday 12-6 pm

Friedman Benda's 10 Year Design Retrospective

Image c/o Friedman Benda

For ten years, Friedman Benda in Chelsea has hosted exhibitions of work that prove to hold their ground over time while also providing opportunities to tell engrossing, in-depth and rarely highlighted stories about the design objects that surround us. To celebrate their tin anniversary, the gallery has organized a vibrant retrospective of works from prolific designers such as Shiro Kuramata, Gerrit Rietveld, Faye Toogood, Ettore Sottsass, to share their own thoughts on the work they believe has significantly contributed to the evolution and progress of contemporary design. 

"DNA10" at Friedman Benda, May 4-June 10, 515 W 26th St

Open Tuesday-Saturday, 10 am-6pm

"A Room With Its Own Rules" at Chamber

All images by David Brandon Geeting for Chamber

A clear reaction to the political discourse of the day, one topic that holds special value in this year's round of NYCxDesign is the proper showcasing of women and the work they design; what feels especially important to curator Matylda Krzykowkski, the organizer of Chamber's newest exhibition, is not simply highlighting women in design, but also questioning why the reign of the white male designer has yet to loosen its grip on the industry. Displaying works by a number of women from different disciplines, backgrounds and schools of thoughts, "A Room With Its Own Rules" stands to complicate the view of how women designers hold space, and inevitably represent femininity, in the current scope of design. 

"A Room With Its Own Rules" at Chamber, May 2-July 15 at 515 W. 23rd St

Open Tuesday-Saturday, 10 am-6 pm

UM Project's Ultraframe

Image c/o UM Project

UM Project's solo exhibition Ultraframe is all about contradictions and structural exploration. Presented by Colony Consult and in collaboration with FEBRIK, the array of otherworldly armoires, cabinets and credenzas meets just where we like things to: at "the intersection of function and fiction".

Be sure to RSVP to Yuka Honda of Cibo Matto's performance happening tomorrow night at Ultraframe. We have a feeling the night will be filled with surprises. 

Ultraframe at XOCO, May 11-24 at 325 West Broadway

Open Monday-Sunday, 12pm-6pm

EGG Collective's Designing Women

Lithops Landscape, Maria Moyer

Large Knotty Bubbles Pendant, Lindsey Adelman

Gathering 2017, Hiroko Takeda

Rigger's Knot, Dana Barnes

Celebrating their five year anniversary after debuting at ICFF in 2012, design company, EGG Collective's, first group show consists of work by female designers operating businesses in NYC. Another much-needed response to equal gender representation in design, the focus of the show is to highlight the wide variety of work contemporary female designers are creating and the diverse processes they're using to do so. EGG Collective Co-Founder and Designing Women curator Hillary Petrie emphasized that she one day hopes to put pieces in front of people and ask whether they were designed by a male or female—Petrie believes the real answers still might shock people. 

Designing Women at EGG Collective, May 1-26 at 304 Hudson Street No. 307

Open Monday-Friday, 10am-6pm (weekends by appointment)

Lindsey Adelman Studio's AfterGlow

Images c/o Lindsey Adelman Studio

Although not on display over the weekend, this show still deserves a shout-out: AfterGlow features work from Lindsey Adelman as well as fellow studio members Karl Zahn and Mary Wallis. The exhibition showcases lighting works that interpret an afterglow in each designer's own personal way. The works come together to create a comfortable ambiance, supported by patterned floor cushions attendees are invited to lounge on. 

AfterGlow at Lindsey Adelman Studio, May 11-31 at One Great Jones Street

Open Monday-Friday, 12pm-6pm

Find more NYCxDesign events over on our NYCxDesign Map!

The Core77 team spends time combing through the news so you don't have to. Here's a weekly roundup of our favorite finds from the World Wide Web:

A history of alternative and independent music mapped out to the circuit board of an early transistor radio.

A new show in London on Californian design.

This coffee table is inspired by Princess Leia's side buns. Not seeing it.

Will Amazon’s New Echo Show device be watching you? 

Remember when you could sell anything in epic 'void-deserts'?

How Tech developed our notion of Witches.

Discuss & debate this sandwich mentality chart.

Karim Rashid and Stratus Vineyards designed the 'Decant' wine bottle that filters as you pour. We tried the wine ourselves and can confirm it's tasty. 

A 'how it works' article that explains popular artworks that mess with your mind.

Nothing new for designers but good pics and a nice layout.

Nixon Trumpeted Design?

Hot Tip: Check out more blazin' hot Internet finds on our Twitter page.

Building a Watch Box

Izzy Swan uses simple but effective techniques to bang out this hinged watch box:

Hardwood Flooring Around Stair Spindles

Matthias Wandel puts his engineering skills—and patience—to work to solve a hardwood floor installation problem:

Making Firewood With a Bandsaw

Matthias hauls his bandsaw out into a field, seeking a more efficient way to turn a felled tree into firewood:

Hacked Together Computer Desk

Frank Howarth continues building out his home office. Here he designs a desk/editing workstation and builds it out of a solid-core door, problem-solving as he goes:

Cantilevered Shop Cart

Jay Bates puts his pantorouter to work, using it to cut mortises and tenons for a cantilevered-shelf cart to hold his planer:

Adding 220 Volt Outlets to the Shop

April Wilkerson DIY's 220 outlets for her new shop so that she can finally start running the larger tools:

How to Make a Dual-Purpose Knife Block

Bob Clagett makes a combination knife block and cookbook stand:

Cannon 2.0

Jimmy DiResta creates a second small brass cannon, this time using both the lathe and a CNC plasma cutter:

Learning the Hard Way: Dealing With Disastrous Mistakes

The Samurai Carpenter starts out cutting one of those sexy Japanese lightning-bolt scarf joints, then cuts to footage of the deck he's building, where a series of mistakes have created problems. He takes the setbacks in the way that all of us should recover from mistakes:

How to Make a No-Pour Concrete Topped Coffee Table

Ana White's quick, simple design uses just $25 of raw materials:

DIY Upholstered Queen Size Headboard w/ Linen & Mahogany

Linn from Darbin Orvar uses upholstery techniques this week, building a button-tufted headboard for the bed she made last week:

Quick and Dirty Screen Printing (No Emulsion)

"Sometimes Screen Printing is the best option to get the Job done," writes Laura Kampf, "but I don´t always have time to burn the screen properly and I usually don´t have the light sensitive emulsion at hand...or a darkroom. So here is how you can make a quick print without any of the professional equipment:"

DIY 2x4 Bench

As part of a self-imposed "2x4 Challenge," Ben Uyeda creates a small bench using just two $3 2x4s:

Designing and Building a Kid's Bench Using Two 2x4s

Ben's podcasting partner, Chris Salomone, took the same challenge:

Lumber Stack Levelers

Matt Cremona designs and builds a system to keep the massive slabs from his self-built sawmill level when dried for stacking:

Forged Hinge Prototyping

Blacksmith Alec Steele starts making a rough version of the hinges he'll put on the tool chest built for him by the Samurai Carpenter:

Groupon is looking for a talented hands-on Sr. Design Manager to join our team in Palo Alto, CA, where you'll be leading the ways our consumers buy, check out and use the deals cross platform. You have 8+ years of experience as a UX leader and amazing portfolio to back

For their new "all-conditions" sneaker, the ACG.07.KMTR, Nike developed a totally new entry-exit system that we're very curious to try out. Rather than laces and eyelets, the kick features a draw cord, a strap and a magnetic buckle. Here's what opening and closing the bag-like upper looks like:

"We trialed a number of closure systems, and I began thinking about how a parachute unfurls and wondered how that might operate in reverse," says Nike designer Gerald Sullivan. "Ultimately what worked best was pulling the cord through the shoe via a single hinge. This act molds the bag-like upper into form. Secondary lockdown is achieved through the magnetic buckle, which is not only low profile, but adds a distinct panache to the shoe's form."

The shoe will launch later this week.

Some of you young nerds have probably never spent time hanging around in niche interest internet forums, and some of you old nerds probably never bothered. If so, take my word for it, they're some of the purest creative spaces left on earth. Whether or not you share a board's passion for say, fully custom miniature motorized vehicles, the work and passion and shit talk shared puts modern day #WIP Instagram camaraderie to shame. 

Old Mini Bikes member Jeep2003 built a custom mini lawnmower with all the flair and painstaking detail work of a restored '50s lowrider. It's styled after classic cars from the hand built body to the chrome trim, bullet lights and racist decal. And Jeep2003 shared his process on the internet and the other fans of weird fun motor projects gazed upon it, and they did rejoice. And nobody called him a Nazi or doxxed anyone or accused him of ripping off a long dead auto designer, because verily niche forums are a weird and blessed place.

Though tightly executed enough to look factory made, this weird gorgeous thing apparently came together using the base of a burned out smoker and an old snowblower engine. Plus a grip of ingenuity, fabrication skills, and a really good paint setup.

The finished mower runs, though not often—it's too pretty and hard won to waste on any old grass. 

That's one inspiring little ugly duckling

..An impressive ugly fledgling

...And a fresh af little mower-car

Add the fact that I noticed this goldmine of a pet project via the real Pee-Wee Herman blog, and it almost makes the internet seem wholesome. Speaking of which, go visit our forums. They're the good kind of wingnuts too. 

Qmod is an educational Kit developed to empower kids to learn about the science of energy in a hands-on and memorable way. The Energy Kit includes the Qmod Energy Block, card game, instructions and everything you need to power imaginations with the possibilities of what the future of energy might be.

Discover energy from natural sources.

The Qmod Energy Kit.

Learning about reduction oxidation reactions to create electricity can be as simple as playing a game of cards with your friends.

Qmod is an Educational Technology startup that has developed an educational kit to teach kids (8-15) the basics of electricity, harvesting energy and how to apply this knowledge towards real world challenges.

Easy-to-follow instructions.

Create your own solutions for tomorrows energy needs.

Learn about the basics of electricity, including circuits and switches.

Generate energy from waste.

Power things you can code.

Discover energy in the most unlikely places.

In Part 1 of The Quest for an Affordable Dust-Collecting Cyclone, I got one of the facts backwards; luckily Stuart Deutsch (newly-minted PhD in Materials Science and Engineering, congrats Stu!) over at ToolGuyd wrote in to set the record straight. I'd incorrectly stated that "most of the dust (and particularly the fine particles) gets sucked away by the vortex," but in fact it's the reverse.

Once cameras were added to cell phones, society's documentation of everything grew explosively. But there are several earlier generations of images—shot by our parents, our grandparents—that we do not have practical access to, because they are trapped on old film negatives that we're never going to bother bringing to a lab.

Enter FilmLab, a smartphone app created by software developer Abe Fettig:

At press time over 800 film enthusiasts backed FilmLab's Kickstarter campaign. He's still several grand short of his modest $20,000 goal, but there are still 23 days left to pledge if you want to give him a boost. You can pledge for the app (both iOS and Android) for just $18, which is a lot cheaper than a trip to the lab.

If you've worked with consumer electronics, you'll have come across living hinges. They are found in a wide variety of components – clamshell packaging, attached bottle caps, and electronic cases, just to name a few.

They are low cost, easy to manufacture, and have little wear or friction involved in operation — understandably a popular choice! The idea is about as simple as you can get: a thin, flexible section of the same material used to build connecting parts of your product. But while the idea is simple, the execution can be more complicated.

Let's take a look at some of the most important design, process and material considerations to help you get started.

Dimensions and Design

Since its introduction in the 1960s, the actual dimensions in living hinge design have changed very little. Fig 1 shows the standard polypropylene design used for injection molding.

6 Living Hinge Design Best Practices

1. Add Generous Radii

Generous radii improve flow through the hinge during molding and reduce stress concentration during use.

2. Include 'Shoulders'

'Shoulders' on the part creates a flat recess. This both serves to make sure the hinge will bend in the center and that the part can deform enough for the hinge to have room to close.

3. Thin and Flexible is Best

A thicker hinge may appear more robust, but the greater elongation on the surface can cause the material to exceed its yield point, shortening the lifespan of the hinge. A thinner hinge is more flexible.

4. Divide Long Hinges

Hinges longer than 6 inches should be designed in two or more parts to improve hinge life.

5. Experiment with Thickness

The thickness of the hinge will change how stiff or sloppy the hinge feels to operate. You may have to experiment with more than one thickness to find what best fits your design.

6. Orientation Affects Strength

Orientation of the plastic molecules highly affects the strength of the joint and consequentially the hinge strength; the long plastic molecules should be perpendicular to the hinge whenever possible. It is possible to make viable hinges with parallel orientation (in the case of extrusion, for instance) if your design requires it, but you won't be maximizing the strength of your material.

While it's helpful to use the typical polypropylene design as a starting point, make sure to tailor this foundational design to your product's specific needs.

Production Methods

Living hinges can be created in final production parts through injection molding and extrusion, with injection molding as the strongest method. For prototyping, 3D printing or urethane casting are both great options.

We're going to take a look at each of these production methods and cover the best material options and important design considerations unique to each.

For quick-turn prototypes (3D printed parts in 24 hours), you can simply upload your files below for instant quotes in 3D printing and urethane casting.

Living Hinge Design for Injection Molding

Injection molding is the strongest way to build living hinges and great for production parts.

Best Material Option

Due to its toughness and ductility, polypropylene is the best material choice and a well designed, injection molded PP hinge can have an almost infinite service life reaching several million flexes.

Polyethylene is the second most common living hinge material with similar properties to polypropylene.

Design Tips

One of the most important design rules in injection molding is to maintain uniform wall thickness. In uneven walls, the different rates of contraction during cooling can cause residual stresses, warping and even breaking in your design.

However, when designing a living hinge you actually need to do the opposite by creating non-uniform walls, because for the hinge to be flexible it needs to be much thinner than the connecting rigid part.

Potential issues can be reduced or resolved entirely if you think carefully about where the gates in the mold will be placed. The full method for optimal gate placement can be found in the MIT Guide to Designing Living Hinges.

Note that immediately after molding, the hinge should be flexed a few times. This will cold-draw the plastic, greatly increasing its service life. A trick of the trade that simplifies tooling modification is to start with the flat section above the hinge having a depth of at least .015 inch and a hinge thickness of .006 inch".

Living Hinge Design for Urethane Casting

Urethane casting is a great option for bridging the gap between prototype and production.

Best Material Option

Urethane resins are a huge family and come in hundreds of different properties. Manufacturers in different countries and states have different resins on hand, including some similar to polypropylene, the best material for living hinges.

Within the family of these PP-like materials, there is a tradeoff related to the durometer of the material — you can have rigid parts with a short-lived hinge or a flexible hinge and soft part walls. Some recommended materials are the Hapflex ™ 600 series, and BCCplastics BC8160 resin, specifically formulated for living hinge applications.

Your manufacturer may have other suitable resins in stock and should be able to help you choose one for your design.

Design Tips

When you cast in a polyurethane, the flow pressures are much lower than in injection molding, so a trade-off has to be made. The reduced pressures means the resin will flow less and so the hinge can't be made as thin while still producing reliable parts.

Because of this, we recommend starting with a thickness slightly thicker than your injection molding design and choose a urethane in the low Shore D range. BJB FD-45 is a good place to start — Shore 45A, 735% Elongation, and castable.

As mentioned earlier, high durometer resins will retain part rigidity but give the hinge a limited life, while low durometer resins result in a more flexible hinge and softer part.

Living Hinge Design for 3D Printing

There are a lot of great options for prototyping hinges with 3D printing to test different thicknesses, placements and shapes. The resulting part won't be as strong as an injection molded part, but should withstand enough flexes to properly test the component.

Best Material Option

When selecting the best 3D printing materials for living hinges, you should look for plastics with good elongation and flexibility. Nylon is a great option, for example.

Another great option is to prototype your part as a multi-material piece with a combination of VeroWhite and Rubber-like. Here's a resource to help you prepare files for printing in two materials, giving you the functionality of a living hinge without sacrificing strength and resistance in the body if that's crucial to your part's performance.

Design Tips

When creating hinges in 3D parts, build orientation is very important. For the hinge to have maximum strength, the horizontal build plane should be perpendicular to the hinge direction.

Best results occur when the hinge thickness as at least twice the resolution of your print. Given that Nylon has a resolution of 0.254mm we recommend starting with 0.5mm as a minimum thickness.

Following these instructions should ensure your print gets at least 100 flexes in its testing cycle.

Main Takeaways

Designing living hinges can seem complicated at first, but once mastered can result in huge cost savings.

Where a traditional hinge could require several molding operations, an assembly operation, increased parts, and friction between parts causing wear, a living hinge can be made and included in your design in just one operation and the friction is reduced to nothing.

Invest in thoughtful design at the prototyping stage and you'll save time, effort, and money when ready for higher volume production.

For further reading, check out these resources:

MIT - Design Issues on Living Hinges

Plastics Today - Polypropylene Part Design II: Living Hinges

Machine Design - The Care and Feeding of Living Hinges

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This post is provided by Fictiv, the most efficient manufacturing platform for fabricating parts. Powered by a distributed network of highly vetted vendors, the online interface makes it easy for customers to get instant quotes, review manufacturing feedback, and manage orders—all through a single service.